“But I know who’s building the best rocket on the ground.” He looked at me, and something eased in his face, and he grinned and picked up his paintbrush.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Us.” And we worked together in the quiet sunlight, and I understood, watching my son choose the rocket in his hands over the plane in the sky, that we were going to be all right — that the sky had not been ruined for him, only relocated, brought down to a porch and a rocket kit and a mother who was there, and that from this small solid ground, someday, he would fly again.

I have thought a great deal about how a child’s broken trust is actually repaired, because in those first months I was terrified that Luca had done something permanent to Leo — that a boy who watches his hero betray him over a loudspeaker might simply stop being able to love, or hope, or believe in anyone, might grow up guarded and cynical and afraid to hand his whole heart to anything ever again.